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Tekken will 'never sell' DLC characters

Tekken producer Katsuhiro Harada talks about his philosophy behind locked content, why he would never sell characters, and how the series may make room for cosmetic DLC.

Capcom has been at odds with its fans over its DLC practices. However, although Namco Bandai and Capcom collaborated on Street Fighter x Tekken, the two companies don't quite adopt the same business strategies. Tekken producer Katsuhiro Harada has stated he doesn't plan to ever charge for characters.

"This isn’t really directed at Capcom, I have always said this, but I see the characters and their move sets as chess pieces - they are essential items necessary in the game and we would never sell any of those individually."

"Tekken has never had DLC before and charged for it," Harada told Edge. However, Harada does point out that the Tekken series could get cosmetic DLC. "There are some strange people on Twitter who ask for really peculiar items like bikini suits for Lee Chaolan," he said. Those items weren't part of the business plan, so if they were created, Namco would need to charge for them. He also said that characters could be pre-order incentives, as long as they could also be unlocked in the game too.

In regards to his competition, Harada did state that the decision to include on-disc DLC characters in Street Fighter X Tekken is "Capcom's business decision." He pointed out that including them on the disc was probably to keep players from needing to download large files in order to play together, along with easing the cross-platform Vita/PS3 functionality. He steered clear of criticizing the decision to charge for the characters.

Thanks to Street Fighter X Tekken, fans will be expected to pay for Tekken characters -- some of the on-disc DLC includes characters from the series. However, when the Tekken team releases its own version of the cross-promotional game, we'll have to hold Harada to his promise.

Steve Watts

Editor-In-Chief

Steve Watts' youthful memories are are a blur of pixels, princesses, castles, and Mega Busters. After writing about games as a pastime for years, he got his first shot at a paid gig at 1UP. He's freelanced for several sites since then, and found a friendly home at Shacknews. His editorial duties include news, reviews, features, and lunatic ravings. He lives in the Baltimore-Washington area with his shockingly understanding wife.